Early Black Leaders Page 1

EARLY BLACK LEADERS — PAGE 1

21.5 pages = 45 minutes

Early Black A.A. Leaders

Glenn Chesnut

3 p.m., Saturday, July 26, 2014, Serenity House,5157 Harrison St., Gary, Indiana

Serious attempts to bring a few black members into A.A. began as early as 1940, but were met with almost overwhelming resistance for the next four years. It was not until 1945 (at the end of World War II) that the first black AA groups were allowed to be formed.[1]

St. Louis forms the first black

A.A. group on January 24, 1945

Careful research shows that the first black AA group in the United States was formed in St. Louis.[2] The group held its first meeting on January 24, 1945, with five members present, and designated Torrence S. as their secretary. Proud of their accomplishment, they called themselves the “AA-1 Group.” Father Ed Dowling, who for twenty years was Bill Wilson’s sponsor, may have played a role in gaining acceptance for this group. Father Dowling was a major figure in St. Louis A.A., and had long been a friend of the black community.[3]

Eight months after the new black AA group was founded, in September 1945, one member of the group, Howard W., wrote Bobbie Burger at the Alcoholic Foundation (the central AA office in New York City) asking the New York office and the AA Grapevine to “withhold publicity about our group that may occasion controversial discussions of racial problems within A.A.” That is, it is so sad to say, but the existence of the black AA group was kept almost totally secret, at their request, for fear that white racists would try to raise a public controversy about it. But at the beginning of 1946, still going strong, they celebrated with their First Annual Dinner Meeting with “two Negro doctors, the secretary of the YMCA, and a representative of the Urban League” as honored guests.[4]

Because of the St. Louis black AA group’s desire to stay out of the public limelight, even the people in New York forgot about their existence, and very quickly. By 1955, the official New York AA position, which subsequently was simply repeated over and over for the next half century, was that the first black group was formed in Washington D.C. in April 1945. But in fact the order in which the first three black AA groups were started was St. Louis on January 24, 1945, Chicago in March 1945, and Washington D.C. in April 1945.

The second black A.A. group was

formed in Chicago in March 1945

Around two months or so after the founding of the first black AA group in St. Louis, the second black AA group was formed in Chicagoin March 1945.[5] This was the famous Evans Avenue Group, which is still active and going strong in Chicago today.[6]

Evans Avenue, where it was originally located, is near the lake, running north and south between 69th Street and the southern edge of the University of Chicago campus. Raymond Irving took Frank N. and me to visit their present building -- they still call it the Evans Avenue Group, but it is now in a slightly different location -- and they have a lot of photos and memorabilia from the days of early black A.A. in Chicago, which would be helpful in writing a fuller history.

The Evans Avenue group was started by Earl Redmond, who was eventually joined by Bill Williams (in December 1945) and other impressiveleaders who helped in the founding of other black AA groups, extending eastward to two of the big industrial cities of Indiana further east: Gary and South Bend.

Editor’s note: The following is transcribed from Glenn C.’s interview of Bill Williams on Saturday, July 17, 1999at the lakeside home of Frank N. a few miles south of Syracuse, Indiana. Bill told us he was born in 1904, and Jimmy Hodges said that Bill came into AA in Chicago in 1945.

JIMMY HODGES: It was December '45. Cause Redmond came in in March, you told me ....

BILL WILLIAMS: But anyway, I know Redmond came in in March, and I came in that following December.

GLENN: So when you came to South Bend [in 1948 to help our newly started black AA group there] you had about four or five years sobriety behind you? You had a good program by then.

BILL WILLIAMS: Oh yeah, I was pretty solid. I knew by that time that it was going to work. Cause the first -- see, when I first came in, it was my intention to only stay three years. [Laughter] And I knew that I would get it, and I would know anything to do in three years. Because I'm a tailor by trade, and I went to school, and they wanted me three years to finish tailoring. I finished it in one year. I said, if I can finish tailoring in one year, and I can make anything now to be made out of cloth -- and I still do a little of it -- well, I could get this in three years. So I figured in three years, I'd have this -- and I planned to stop going to the meetings! [Laughter] . . . .

[But] see, this is -- see, Alcoholics Anonymous isn’t something that you get. It's a principle that we practice. I been in church since 1911. I been a member of a Baptist church since 1911. I still go to Sunday School and church every Sunday. I haven’t finished it!

You can't complete that .... A.A. isn't something that you will get. It's a principle that we practice. And the word practice is we haven't completed it. You never heard a doctor yet -- how long he's been in business -- there's a sign up there, he's "practicing medicine." He's practicing.

What Alcoholics Anonymous .... It's something said, and I hear people say, and you probably have heard it in your group, that they've been around a few years, and they're "cured." Ain't no such a thing as an alcoholic being cured! There is two incurable diseases, two known incurable diseases. There's alcoholism and ... diabetes .... They are arrested. If I was "cured," I could drink this alcohol now and go on and do all right. But see, alcoholism is one of the progressive, incurable diseases. The disease progress even though you don't drink. You don't have to drink to make it get worse! All we have to do is to stay alive [laugher] and it will get worse. Two diseases like that, alcoholism and diabetes. Nobody -- doctors are smart, but they've never found a cure for diabetes .... It's something with our system .... I can drink anything [else] I want to, but I can't drink alcohol ....

GLENN: Now when you came into A.A. in Chicago, in 1945, did you hit trouble there too? Was there a color bar .... there in Chicago in 1945? I don't know anything about Chicago.

BILL WILLIAMS: Oh yeah! Yeah, it was the same thing. It's still prejudiced, even now.

GLENN: How did you deal with that? In Chicago, in 1945?

BILL WILLIAMS: Well, I was born in Texas.

RAYMOND: He's a cowboy! [Laughter]

JIMMY HODGES: You all got into A.A., and you had to go out to Evanston, and Joe Diggles and all of 'em, and the guy said, Earl Treat, said and all, "Give us ninety days." Tell us about that ....

The third black AA group was founded

in Washington D.C. in April 1945

We see the story of the founding of the Washington D.C. black AA group in April 1945[7] appearing in print for the first time ten years after its founding, in “Jim’s Story” in the Big Book (2nd, 3rd, and 4th eds.). This is the story of Jim Scott M.D., a black physician from Washington, D.C., who is described as “one of the earliest members of A.A.’s first black group.”[8]

By that point, the people in the New York AA office had forgotten that they had material in their files showing that St. Louis had actually had the first black AA group, and apparently the New York AA office never even realized that the Evans Avenue group in Chicago was a black AA group. So in New York they continually referred to the Washington D.C. group as the first black AA group.

This does not take away from their heroism. In Dr. Jim’s story he tells how he attended a meeting at the home of a woman named Ella G., which he says in his story in the Big Book “was the first meeting of a colored group in A.A., so far as I know.”[9]

Dr. Jim Scott was asked to speak at the Second AA International Convention in St. Louis in 1955, where Bill Wilson praised him for what he had accomplished for black people in Washington D.C.[10]

There are also references to a black A.A. group being started in Valdosta, Georgia, in September 1945, but I have not been able to find out any details about this group.[11]

Early Black A.A. along the

Chicago-Gary-South Bend Axis

For those of us who live in Gary and South Bend, the thing we need to remember is that some of the earliest black A.A. groups in the United States were formed between 1945 and 1948 along an axis running from Chicago eastward through Gary to South Bend, Indiana. These three cities are linked by an interurban rail line called the South Shore Railroad which made it easy for people to travel back and forth. We know much more at present about early black A.A. in this area than we do about any other part of the United States.

You can read more about four of these great black leaders and spiritual teachers — Jimmy Miller, Bill Hoover, Brownie, and Goshen Bill — in two books I wrote almost twenty years ago, The Factory Owner & the Convict and The St. Louis Gambler & the Railroad Man. And I have other material — on the internet on the Hindsfoot site and in my research files back at home — on Bill Williams in Chicago and John Shaifer in Gary. I will try to read from some of that material to you today.

Jimmy Miller’s Story

The First Lady of Black A.A.

Editor’s note:The A.A. group in South Bend remained a totally white organization until 1948, when two black people in South Bend, Bill Hoover and Jimmy Miller, asked for help.

Jimmy Miller was born in Wayne, Arkansas, in 1920, but her family moved to South Bend when she was only three months old, so she is essentially a South Bend person. In March of 1993, Raymond Irving arranged for me to go to Jimmy Miller’s house and tape record some of her reminiscences for the A.A. archives, including the story of how she and Bill Hoover became the first two black A.A. members in South Bend. After they came into the fellowship, Bill and Jimmy eventually got married, so Jimmy was able to talk at length about Bill’s A.A. career as well as hers. Jimmy died around two or three years ago, so we can give her full name now. (This entire conversation is transcribed in Glenn C., The Factory Owner & the Convict.)

Jimmy Miller's account of her role as the first black woman in Alcoholics Anonymous was included verbatim as one of the major scenes in this play:In Our Own Words: Pioneers of Alcoholics Anonymous, written and directed by Jackie B. (San Francisco, California), performed under the sponsorship of the A.A. Grapevine to standing room only audiences at the 2010 International A.A. Convention in San Antonio. It has subsequently been performed at other places in Texas, all over California, in New York, and in Spanish translation in Mexico.

JIMMY MILLER: I was a periodic drinker. Very much so. When I went out, I stuck to my 7-Up, my Coke. I drank at home. I was a loner. If I had a week’s vacation from a job, I stayed drunk that whole week. I mean drunk! --- go into D.T's, had to go to the doctor. We had an alcoholic doctor ... I found out about this doctor, and I'd go get a shot, and I’m all right. But I ... that was my pattern.

Maybe I would go a year without a drink, because I knew better, because then I would be drunk anywhere from one week to two weeks. But I would make sure it was during my vacation -- never lost a job, never got into financial trouble, no kind of way. But then I knew I had this time to stay drunk.

RAYMOND: It's cunning, it's baffling, and it's powerful.

JIMMY MILLER: But I knew I'd get drunk, because I know there was something wrong. The reason I didn't drink when I'd get out, go out: I knew better. I was going to get drunk! I knew that I would be clear drunk for at least a week, so I had to plan these things.

And I used to tell my mother, that I knew better. She said, "Oh honey, you don’t need no help. You just drink sometimes." So she would go and get, like, get the neighbor to go get me two or three pints of whiskey, and I'm quite young, maybe seventeen, sixteen, and when I started drinking she would hand me a pint. I'd go on up to my room. She'd check on me, or she'd bring me soup to eat. And I said, "Mama, I've got to be an alcoholic." And she said, "Naw, my baby gone stop one day." But she was ....

RAYMOND: ... Enabling.

JIMMY MILLER: She never .... No, I think she did the best thing she could do.

When I drank the whole fifth of vodka, that was my last drink. I decided to go to drink me a fifth of vodka, it was just coming out [on the American market]. So I drunk this fifth, I was working at the cleaners.

I was a periodic drinker. Very much so. When I went out, I stuck to my 7-Up, my Coke. I drank at home. I was a loner. If I had a week’s vacation from a job, I stayed drunk that whole week. I mean drunk! --- go into D.T's, had to go to the doctor. We had an alcoholic doctor ... I found out about this doctor, and I'd go get a shot, and I’m all right. But I ... that was my pattern.

RAYMOND: It's cunning, it's baffling, and it's powerful.

RAYMOND: ... Enabling.

JIMMY MILLER: She never .... No, I think she did the best thing she could do.

I blundered at work that morning, the temperature was about 115 [degrees Fahrenheit] in there. I worked for a solid week, without anything on my stomach but a drink of water. I'd get off from work, I'd make it as far as getting on the floor and I would stretch out. It almost killed me.

I didn't have no more afterwards. But like Ray Moore say [he was an Irishman, who became Bill's and my sponsor when we came into A.A.], he was surprised by me being a periodic drinker. To know that I was an alcoholic.

And you know, then I went to send and get all this literature. I was ecstatic at something.

Then I couldn’t get into A.A.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Jimmy made a phone call to the A.A. number in South Bend, but this was 1948, and she was told bluntly over the telephone that Alcoholics Anonymous was for white people only. However, unknown to her, Bill Hoover (who was also black) had also called the South Bend A.A. number about the same time, so a certain amount of soul searching had begun among a few of the A.A. leaders. Jimmy did not know that Bill had also phoned the A.A. number, but she did know who Bill was.

JIMMY MILLER: I had known Bill since '36 or '37. He and one of my brothers was strong alcoholics, so they was running buddies. They used to just say, "Mama, I'm going to sleep on the porch" (in them days you slept on the porch) and him and Bill would drink all night long. You know, I had known Bill for years, never thinking that we would ever marry ....

Bill and I had called in three days apart .... they didn't have any set up for colored people (that's what we were called) .... [first Bill phoned them for help, and then] I called in, and they also told me they didn't have any setup for "colored people."

And at the time that Bill called in, Ray Moore was there, and he heard this remark -- they didn't have anything for colored people -- so he said, “That's all right, I'll take it.” So they tried to discourage him, but anyway, he made the call on Bill.

Three days later I called in, so he brought Bill over to my house, and he said, well he would sponsor us. Only they told him -- they didn't have any set up for colored whatsoever -- we couldn't come to the open meetings or the closed meetings, so Ray had brought two of his friends with him ....

Dunbar [came with him], and the other one was Ken Merrill [the factory owner who was the founder of A.A. in South Bend]. So in the meantime, they decided we could meet from house to house, so we met at my house, Bill's house, [and at the homes of] Ken Merrill and Dunbar.